Dressage is often likened to a dance between horse and rider. I started thinking about the way a top ballroom dancing couple grace the stage. The man is in the lead, but we don’t see this. He doesn’t haul the lady around the stage and she doesn’t snarl or grind her teeth at him. He is leading but she is with him, willingly, enthusiastically, and if she falls behind he is balanced and stable enough to help her regain the rhythm without losing the flow of the dance.
In dressage, the rider has to lead the horse, otherwise you would end up over by the carrot stack or, in my stallion's case, frolicking around the paddock of young mares. However, my hero Nuno Oliveira used to advise that riders must not play the masters all the time, but learn to what extent they must intervene.
A great dance partner leads his partner, but he also allows the female half to stand on her own. Only when we allow our horse the room to move without constant use of aids, can we see what is there that needs attention. If a man holds the lady up, he will not know where she needs help and as with every pair her strengths are his strengths, her weaknesses his weaknesses.
Realising this principle makes you think about many things. Am I holding my horse up or am I creating the path for him to move through alone? Am I blocking his energy, or I am letting his energy move through him, from his hind legs right up through and out the top of my head? Am I pulling him this way or that, or am I leading him gently around our 20x40 dance floor?
The concept that becomes most evident in relating dressage to dance is the concept of preparation and control. “Prepare the exercise. It is important that nothing ever comes as a surprise to the horse,” said Oliveira.
As the horse becomes more and more accustomed to certain exercises, he may try to take the lead and that is where the preparation and, beyond that, the control of the preparation, becomes crucial. If I begin to slow the canter to come to walk and my horse stops abruptly, I was not in control of my preparation.
In dance, if the male lead signals to begin a turn the lady doesn’t go spinning off in the other direction. However, the signal allows her to prepare so they can execute the turn in unison. So, if you are in control of your preparation, is your preparation clear and always the same?
Often we see riders ask for something and then ask for it again in a completely different way and then get frustrated at the horse for not understanding. We first must make sure we are consistent in our aids and that we not only control our preparation, but are aware of what our preparation is intending to achieve. Then we must reward, or discipline, with one thought in mind; if we don’t know what we wanted, how does our horse know?
Leading the dance with your horse is an art in itself and top riders and horsemen know when and how to discipline without losing their partner's trust. “Clearly we must put a horse in discipline. However, we must avoid trying to dominate him all the time, otherwise he will brace himself," said Nuno.
Then our dance must have clear objectives, otherwise we will end up in a dizzy mess. Just like the choreographed lines of a dance, we must first decide where we are going and then we must go there. This means if you decide to do a change at B and your horse does it at V, you can’t think, oh well, it was good so I’ll just give him a pat and call it a day.
You must always be thinking what message you are sending to your horse and if later you are in a test and you whip him for an early change, it is you who needs the discipline because you were lazy in training. Then, you must think of the energy of the dance and where this energy begins and ends.
"Dressage must be practiced with the constant preoccupation of weight on the hind-end but without grabbing the mouth,” Oliviera explained. Energy must be generated through exercises and not forced by the aids and then blocked by the hand.
A dance for two also mean that each individual has to play their role, and a rider cannot hold the horse up, but must teach him to dance alone as part of the whole. “It is necessary for the horse to hold himself in a good position without being carried by the aids," said Nuno.
When you go to take your partner in the arena, make sure you are leading, but you are united in the dance.
Prepare him for the movements, but be in charge of their end and their beginning. Make him respect you, but don’t lose his respect in the process. “Horsemanship is, for certain riders, a partnership with the horse, for others, it is an hour of wrestling, a sheer brawl," Oliveira stated.
Only one of the above has any merit in the dance of the dressage!
Text by Sarah Warne
Photo © Astrid Appels
Read all of Sarah's Classical Training Articles here.